Keats, Hunboshi, and King’s Charisma were all recent winners in Australia, and are the three leading choices in a field of 11 in the Ararat Gold Cup at 1 1/4 miles on Saturday evening across American time zones at Ararat Racecourse in Australia.
Even though Keats will carry top weight of 130 pounds, the veteran gelding was 6-5 in early betting to win for the fourth time in his last six starts.
A two-time Australian Horse of the Year and the leading colt for that prize this season will be heavy favorites to win two of three Group 1 races worth $1.88 million at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne on Friday evening across American time zones.
Nature Strip, Horse of the Year for the 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 seasons, is a 16-time stakes winner who will start as a strong favorite in the Champions Sprint at six furlongs on a straightaway course in the first Group 1 of the program.
This season has not gone well for Juventus. The soccer team of that name is in seventh place in the 20-team Italian Serie A league, and the Australia-bred gelding Juventus is winless in 10 starts since December.
Juventus, the racehorse, has a chance to end that losing streak in the Kempsey Cup at 7 1/4 furlongs at Kempsey Racecourse in Australia on Thursday.
She’s Extreme has lost her last four starts, all Group 1 and Group 2 races in Australia. Zenzella has won her last two starts, including the Group 2 Wakeful Stakes at Flemington Racecourse on Saturday.
Those two are expected to be the first two choices in the Group 1 Kennedy Oaks at 1 9/16 miles at Flemington on Wednesday.
Gold Trip accomplished something in Tuesday’s Group 1 Melbourne Cup that he failed to do in his first five starts in Australia.
He finally won.
Ridden by Mark Zahra, Gold Trip ($41.50) closed from 14th in a field off 22 to win the $4.96 million Melbourne Cup at Flemington by two lengths over 25-1 Emissary.
The victory marked the first win in Australia’s most famous race for the powerhouse training partnership of Ciaron Maher and David Eustace, who had five runners in the field and also finished third with 30-1 High Emocean.
Before he travels to Kentucky for the Breeders’ Cup this weekend, world-famous jockey Frankie Dettori has a new assignment in Australia. Dettori has been booked to ride race favorite Hosier in The Big Dance Stakes at Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney on Monday evening across American time zones.
The Big Dance Stakes, with a purse of $1.27 million, is run at a mile and is a newly created race restricted to horses that qualified in a year-long series of races at countryside tracks in the state of New South Wales.
With the benefit of a mid-October prep race, the 5-year-old mare Designs appears well positioned to win for the third time in her last five starts in the Kyneton Cup at Bendigo Racecourse in Australia on Tuesday evening across American time zones.
A winner of 4 of 20 starts, Designs won consecutive handicaps at 1 9/16 miles at Cranbourne in mid-March and Morphettville in early April before finishing second by 4 1/2 lengths as the 7-5 favorite in the Port Adelaide Cup at the same distance on May 7.
Equinox has grown up nicely in Japan in recent months.
After finishing second in two Grade 1 races in the spring – the Japanese 2000 Guineas and the Japanese Derby – Equinox won his debut against older horses in a bizarre running of Sunday’s Grade 1 autumn Tenno Sho at Tokyo Racecourse.
Ridden by Christophe Lemaire, Equinox ($5.20) closed from 10th in a field of 15 to win by a length over 21-1 Panthalassa, who led by as many as 15 lengths after the first mile in the $2.6 million race at 1 1/4 miles.